New Members, New Countries, You Are All Welcome Here!

It's in traditional chinese, GB18030.

Translation: Good evening everyone, any country langauges to be used in here.

Feel feel to post Japanese and Russian here - I will try my best to translate... :)

No, I'm not an Aussie - I'm just temporarily living here :p But yes, I guess I somewhat know the slangs here... ;)

I think there are two barriers
First barrier is the language
because some people may ridicule you because of one misspelled verb
( referring to an investment forum )
and because a basic knowledge of a language does not allow you to discuss anything in dept certainly when they use slang
( referring to the fact I speak fairly good german but cannot
discuss in depth on a forum I post often in german but lack the full
range of words to discuss )

Second barrier is wanting to learn and being afraid
to be ignored or to show your ignorance or just having nothing
to contribute
( I read every day a daytrader forum but since I am a long term
investor I would not even think about forecasting what the next hour
will happen )

I can do english-french-dutch and german in one direction that is to one of the three languages mentioned first
In an emergency I get by in Spanish
Quiero un sollomio muy poco hecho

ageka, As I have always said, and been taught, there are NO stupid questions, only stupid people who don't ask questions? Guess that is blunt but the whole idea is to welcome everyone and like it or not we were all beginners at one point in our lives. And, in my case, being relatively new to world collecting I seem to be a beginner again myself. I just want everyone to know friends are here, help is here and there are lots of collectors willing to share, trade or help out in any way they can. Believe me when I say this little box sitting in front of me has changed the way I view the world and all the great people I have found living on this planet. Seems we are more alike than the media would ever want us to know?

"Touche"...the fear of being rediculed is the biggest stumbling block for newbies, both as a collector or as a new poster.

The percentage of members who have posted against the number of registered members already speaks volumes in itself. It is incumbent on all of us to maintain this friendly helpful atmosphere.

I think the feeling of "community" that is maintained here is what attracts many of us. We are running about 55% mermbership that actually post. This is pretty good, but can use some improvement. This idea is a great way to accomplish the goal of increased participation. I know I keep this as a sticky, but here is the list of member Countries........Afghanistan, Algeria, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Egypt, Finland, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, South Africa, Thailand, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States and Yugoslavia

Hey Shatsi I'm from Inida studying as a 9th grader in Kuwait, LOL!!